REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 25, 2014 —Community Healthcare Network (CHN), a group of nonprofit community health centers providing medical, dental and social services in neighborhoods throughout New York, has selected Microsoft Office 365 and email in the cloud to keep its business and healthcare teams running smoothly and to help enable seamless communication in crisis situations.

“Prior to selecting Office 365, in emergency situations, our health teams were more at risk of losing communication with each other and not being able to help those most in need,” said Catherine Abate, CHN’s president and CEO. “With Office 365, if a weather emergency hits, we’re able to use the power of the cloud to help maintain email and server connectivity, keep our operations moving forward, and stay in contact with our staff members and other organizations so we can focus on helping patients.”

When Hurricane Sandy hit, CHN lost its on-premises email communications, which wreaked havoc on an organization that relies heavily on email to coordinate with health teams and manage healthcare operations. Once the storm was over and email was restored, CHN decided to look at moving the entire organization to the cloud permanently to help avoid similar adverse situations in the future. Office 365 not only provided virtually anytime, anywhere access to an increasingly mobile workforce, it also helped ensure HIPAA compliance and a commitment to maintaining the highest security and privacy standards. In addition, Office 365 has helped improve the efficiencies of CHN’s electronic medical records (EMRs).

“Even since the beginning of 2014, we’ve experienced some significant winter weather here in New York, but despite the weather, we’ve been able to keep everything up and running thanks to the cloud,” said Jason Pomaski, CHN’s assistant vice president of Technology. “Office 365 has really transformed how our organization is able to provide care and respond to emergencies by keeping us connected in a highly secure, user-friendly way.”

CHN provides confidential care to men, women and children, regardless of citizenship status or ability to pay. The nonprofit has a mobile workforce that serves four boroughs with 11 health centers, along with a mobile medical van, and it helps more than 75,000 people per year. CHN is also called upon by state and local governments as a responder to natural disasters and potential health emergencies, which makes reliable communications imperative.

Microsoft and CHN made the announcement as part of the annual HIMSS Conference, the nation’s largest health IT event of the year. From empowering easier collaboration among healthcare teams to securing virtually anytime, anywhere access to vital health information, Microsoft Office 365 capabilities are better equipping healthcare organizations to deliver care for patients.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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